FILTER Magazine #56

By Kyle MacKinnel on April 9, 2013

Upon releasing his last two long players, 2009’s Childish Prodigy and 2011’s Smoke Ring For My Halo, Kurt Vile claimed each as something of a “masterpiece.” In their times, these comments hardly seemed out of line, since both stand up as terrific records. But maybe Vile should bite his dawdling tongue in the case of Wakin On A Pretty Daze, having perennially sold his unflappable talent and singular vision short. While topping Smoke Ring outright nearly seemed insurmountable, Daze is (at an impossibly neat 70 minutes) a larger, more diverse and heavier experience. Don’t sleep on this peculiar alchemy. Despite Vile’s mastery at turning hooks into “goldtones,” the graffiti on the wall suggests his daze has freshly begun, indeed.